


Will In Time Both Outpace And Outlive You

by Go0se



Category: The Mountain Goats (Band)
Genre: Death Metal, Friendship, Gen, One Shot, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-26
Updated: 2015-05-26
Packaged: 2018-03-30 15:57:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3942754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Go0se/pseuds/Go0se
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The best ever death metal band out of Denton was a couple of kids who'd been friends since grade school.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	Will In Time Both Outpace And Outlive You

  
They were sitting in Jeff's bedroom talking about band names again-- their friendship was a mobius strip looped to band names-- when something out in the cosmos shifted. The white Baphomet print she'd tacked up over her window glowed brilliant: all stark grey lines and protective menace, His gaze centered on her, and Jeff knew it was time.  
She leaned forward off the pile of the clothes she'd been laying on and cleared her throat. "So I was thinking, right."  
"I know, _Hospital Bombers._ But  _Satan's Fingers,_ come on!"   
"The  _Killers,_ man, it's a  _tradition,_ " Jeff spat back out of habit.  
Cyrus tipped his head back and laughed. He'd been growing his hair out since fourth grade; it reached slightly past the nape of his neck. It spread out underneath him on the carpet like a dark crown.  
Jeff grinned back. "But I was thinking," she insisted. She'd gesture to get his attention, but her hands were occupied twisting and re-twisting the rubber band that she kept her pics together with. "About names. Other than the band's."  
"Yeah?" Cryus asked, rotating his neck without actually moving. His eyes flicked to Jeff's hands and then Jeff's face, narrowing a little. He meant,  _You only do that when you're freaked out._ He was right: she'd worn one right the fuck out when they'd taken the grade seven history exam together, and snapped another in half when Cy had told his parents about their band and his mom's mouth had curled up to a shrivel.  
"Yeah," Jeff said, rubber band twisted enough to be thin and swirling. "I was thinking that Jeff's a girl's name."  
Cyrus blinked.  
Jeff nodded seriously. She added, "A kickass girl's name," in case that part wasn't clear.  
Cyrus looked at her, then the door, then to the carefully printed and cut stencils that lay at their feet and over to the corner where the guitars' were safely put away from practice. He looked back at her. "Are you sure?"  
"Yeah."  
"Oh." Cyrus said. He studied the posters on her walls.  
The silence was like the tension before a drumbeat breakdown, and Jeff's breath caught the same anticipatory way it would on a intro hook. She stared at the posters too, for guidance. They looked down at her all familiar and holy and bloody, but were silent. The moment yawned like a cave mouth.

"Does anybody else know?" Cyrus asked.

Jeff's attention snapped back. She shook her head. "I don't want them to yet," she said, then hesitated. "It's not that-- I just don't want them to think..."  
"No, I totally get it." he cut off her nervous burst. "Every legendary band has secrets."  
Jeff looked at her friend again. His eyebrows were set and serious, looking up at her through his curly bangs. "I won't tell anyone," he promised. "Until you want to. I get not wanting people to, like. Think."  
"Oh," Jeff said. "So... what do you think?"  
"I think you're wicked," Cyrus said fiercely.   
The word was like a lightning strike on an open plain. The misshapen worry demons that'd crept up Jeff's throat fled before it, shrieking their defeat.    
All the trapped breath rushed out of her lungs as she reflexively let go of the rubber band. It flung itself across the room, soaring right into her poster of a skeleton in flames looming over a village with a sharp grin on its dead face.  
"Bullseye," Cyrus responded automatically. He smiled at her from the floor.  
Jeff laughed, feeling a joy flare through her intense as forest fires. She fell back onto the carpet again. " _Hell_ yeah."  
Cyrus reached over to her. She quickly took his wrist. Their friendship handshake was pretty simple, as secrets went, but it was longstanding and _theirs_ and therefore holy. As the final step they locked their fingers together, tightly as their partnership for all time, and wailed, " _Hail!_ "  
Their voices shook the dust from the corners of Jeff's ceiling, and they saw it was good.

  
-

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this in about twenty minutes, edited for a bit longer than that. Don't really have a reason. Meet me in the pit. The Mountain Goats for ever and ever.  
> *The word count was in fact a coincidence of beautiful, beautiful kind


End file.
